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Virtual War
When it comes to war, writes author Michael Ignatieff, virtual reality is seductive. We see ourselves as noble warriors and our enemies as despicable tyrants. We deploy our sophisticated weaponry -- in our minds itself the hallmark of a superior civilization -- against one-dimensional villains fighting with clubs and spears. We see war as a surgical scalpel and not a bloodstained sword. In so doing we mis-describe ourselves and the instruments of death. "We need," he writes, "to stay away from such fables of self-righteous invulnerability. Only then can we get our hands dirty. Only then can we do what is right."
In recent years, Americans have made it clear they don't want to get their hands dirty, and there isn't anything close to a consensus of what is right. Believing their technology to be superior and infalliable, they are happy to let it do their fighting for them.
Part of the sometimes horrific history of the 20th century is that technology is no good or worse than the moral character of the people using it. The idea of the Virtual War is a uniquely American contribution to this chilling history.
The philosopher Paul Kahn has argued that 'riskless warfare in pursuit of human rights' is a moral contradiction, since the idea behind human rights is that all life is of equal value. So called "risk-free warfare" presumes that our lives matter more than those we are intervening to save.
This idea is underscored in this devastatingly-documented attack on the lack of reason, moral foundation, clear goals or concrete results behind the recent conflict in Bosnia, an American-conceived Virtual War fought primarily by by hi-tech weaponry rather than people. The war was meticulously designed not only to force the Serbs out of Kosovar, but perhaps equally important, to be politically palatable to the American public. Thus the idea of the Virtual War, a conflict in which our technology would supplant the warrior willing to die on our behalf. In the Virtual War, machines do all of the fighting and bleeding for us. Except, of course, for their hapless targets.
Ignatieff (a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and producer of an award-winning TV series on natonalism) was present in the Balkans before, during and after the Bosnian conflict, writes clearly and with laser-like authority and confidence. He zeroes in on American techno-hubris, the idea that a handful of people running computer consoles in distant bases can wage or win a complex military victory, even in the most complex of conflicts.
He reminds us that the victory in Kosova was, to say the least, ambiguous. Far fewer Serb soldiers and equipment were killed in the Virtual Combat than we were led to believe. Although the Serbs did eventually withdraw, in part because of our relentless bombing of civilian targets far from the battlefield, and NATO troops entered Kosovo in their wake, there was no Serb surrender. Nothing was resolved. No legal or other agreements to resolve the conflict have been negotiated or ratified.
On a smaller but still bloody scale, the conflict continues today and is, in fact, worsening. The tanks NATO generals assured us had been destroyed mysteriously emerged from the brush and rumbled back home. Serbia is rebuilding its infrastructure.
"Why do virtual wars end so ambiguously?" asks Ignatieff: "Nations impose unconditional surrender on their enemies only when they have suffered some harm -- death of their citizens, loss of their territory -- which seems to require a fight to the death. Wars fought in the name of the human rights of other nation's national minorities are bound to be self-limiting. We fight for victory and unconditional surrender only when we are fighting for ourselves."
The political and military leaders who planned the Virtual War in Kosovo clearly grasped this idea from the first, even though the American public was never directly told. Missiles and smart bombs assaulted what pilots and data-interpreters hundreds, even thousands of miles away, believed were tanks, troop carriers and gun emplacements. Only a handful of NATO troops, mostly Americans, were involved, and the only casualties they suffered during the conflict were accidental, not in combat. Many of the casualties were civilians killed indirectly by technicians hundreds of miles away who often had no idea anybody had been killed.
"Virtual Wars" is a brilliant exercise both in journalism and moral reasoning. It's also yet another parable and warning about the unthinking American fascination with technology as an all-encompassing, infallible means to and end. Ignatieff documents that the technology used in this Virtual War was much less effective than we were led to believe during the fighting. In any case, he foresees, the American monopoly on this machinery will inevitably end, and it will soon be available to other countries and political groups. We are, he cautions, setting an awful precedent -- it's all right to unleash fearful weapons on unseen targets if you do so in the name of human rights.
The Virtual War was more or less invented in the Persian Gulf when transfixed Americans were hypnotized by the laser-guided video bomb flights and explosions released every night for the evening news. Here was a savvy, spin-conceived conflict if ever there was one: an unequivocally bad dictator pummeled by thousands of superbly-armed American soldiers who suffered few casualties and were led by a General as good with sound bites as he was with a field map. Years later, some people still puzzle why Saddam is still in charge, why the core of his army is intact, why many of the people who were encouraged by the United States to challenge him have been slaughtered, why he is rearming. But that is less riveting than the notion of the Virtual War, and the video on the evening news.
If "Virtual War" has a flaw, it may be in failing to take account the influence of modern media on the shaping of military conflicts. The U.S. military left Vietnam convinced they were undermined as much by grisly TV footage shown at home as by the North Vietnamese. Since that war, the military has taken extraordinary pains to make sure that they control the footage that makes it to the evening news. If they can't always win on the battlefied, they've sure conquered the mainstream media, desperate for such graphic, riveting footage. Consider the TV images from Vietnam to Iraq: mangled American bodies to imploding Iraqi radar stations and warehouses. But that's a minor oversight This a terrific book, richly documented, written in a spare and accessible way, and profoundly persuasive.
Ignatieff asks the right questions. Is it moral to kill others when we refuse to make any sacrifices ourselves? Can a "Virtual War" fought by machines controlled from great distances, really conquer countries, resolve conflicts, and promote lasting settlements?
Can any country like the U.S. muster the determination and will -- evident in all of its previous wars up until Vietnam -- to do whatever it takes to win even as our leaders concede the conflict --thus the principle -- isn't worth any any substantial material or human cost to us?
The Kosovo operation, writes Ignatieff, is the paradigm of this paradoxical form of warfare: where technological omnipotence is vested in the hands of risk-averse political cultures. "Precision violence is now at the disposal of a risk-adverse culture, unconvinced by the language of military sacrifice, skeptical about the costs of foreign adventures and determined to keep out of harm's way."
Purchase this book at Fatbrain.
Virual refugees the world over are desperate for virtual food, and clothing.
pls donate as much as you virtually can.
laugh it's meant to be funny
blog and junk
Well, if humans can let hoards of machines do their battles and spare human lives... go for it. On the other hand, if we could stop fighting altogether, we could use those machines for far better purposes.
University - a box of academia nuts.
"Then, on an all-new, powerful 'Buffy'..."
Can High Technology Bring the Troops Home?
tcd004
Here's my Microsoft Parody, where's yours?
We fight wars with guns in the real world. We fight wars with scripts, computers, and bandwidth online. We trade money online through credit cards, we chat online through e-mail and IRC. We telecommute for our jobs. We have a plethora of technologies to interface the realworld's knowledge and information directly into the virtual one.
Yet despite the overwhelming evidence that the virtual world is a mirror of the realworld, we continue to treat this medium as somehow different from the real one. Our legal conventions somehow didn't cross the digital divide, and we're left with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the CDA, software patents, and "e-commerce". It seems that the world has fallen under the dillusion that if someone creates something "new" in the virtual world that is "old" in the real world.. it must be valuable and something to be protected. This is the single most dangerous idea threatening the virtual world - it could easily destroy it or render it a useless wasteland of advertisements and billboards, push technology, and download-only bandwidth.
That's my take on virtual morality - it is just the same as realworld morality, only mirrored and adapted. Minus one minor glitch in people's thinking: that the two are somehow seperate and not to be mixed.
Many wars in were on the front of intelligence; seeing as the web is an intelluctial front (well, it's supposed to be that way), it seems apt that some wars would be fought here eventually.
-Mr. Macx
Moof!
If in a virtual war machines are fighting machines and no people get hurt then isnt it just an expensive game.
tcd004
let me say that I'd far rather that some Serbian civilians were killed accidentally than any of our soldiers
The 'death from above' warfare that is typical of the technologically advanced American military presents a similar situation. Not only are we imperialist pigs, but also cowards in the face of most of the world. As successful as we may (or may not) be, this is one of the many reasons we are hated throughout the world.
Today 50 Serbian soldiers, 5 radios and an electric toothbrush were killed by a nineteen year old armed with a GED and a toggle switch.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
We should also ask ourselves the real reasons for the Persian Gulf "war". Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't about oil--only 11% of the United States total oil consumption for that year came from nations that could possibly have been affected (Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE). In fact, we were getting more oil from Iraq than from Kuwait in the year before the war started. Even after the war, the United States government repeatedly chastized the restored Kuwaiti government for its poor human-rights record, but did this out of the spotlight in venues that the U.S. public was unlikely to explore.
What's the agenda here? Why is the United States spending so much time and effort bombing people with alleged "precision" munitions (munitions which, in the Gulf War at least, were later shown to have only a 40% hit rate--a far cry from the perception that every bomb hit every target). We need to ask ourselves what the government is doing with all of this money, and who the next target of those weapons will be.
The United States government has shown, in recent years, a great intolerance for certain "fringe" groups. These munitions, once honed to perfection (after being tested on foreign soil in conflicts that are generated out of thin air), may be used in the future to silence groups that dare to speak out against the government.
We are right to be afraid of this, but we should not let that fear paralyze us. The government prefers to use smoke and mirrors when fighting these battles; only the blinding light of the truth will save us.
www.alarmist.org
The problem with war is that it is essentially not a moral exercise. Killing people is immoral, but sometimes it has to be done.
It isn't a bad thing that the gov't now has to make sure our wars are palatable to the American people. It isn't a bad thing that less of our soldiers are dying.
The point that we see our enemies as one-sided ogres is valid, but nothing at all new. Every culture has done that to its enemies since the begining of time, so don't try to tell us that that's a result of "virtual war."
I'm not in a position to comment on what really happened in Kosovo, but I don't think it's immoral to fight for people who are being systematically removed from their homes.
If there is a danger to virtual war, it is that the people sanctioning the war will not be exposed to the horrific damage that can be inflicted by modern weapons, because they are so far from the battlefield. But, then again, the people sanctioning the wars have usually not been close enough to actually see the horror of war.
OoO
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
It seems to me that the guy is saying that in order for a war to be moral enough people on your side have to be killed.
Minimum acceptable loss ratio?
"Sorry, gentlemen, you suffered less than 15% of our casualties. It is now quite clear that we are the 'good' side and you are the 'evil' side."
I can understand being morally uncomfortable about risklessly killing people at a distance. I would guess this is a remnant from the times when personal man-to-man battles were the only honorable form of combat. But, really, arguing that you MUST pay in blood to achieve military goals...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Part of America's obsession with a lossless, painless war is deep wounds that still linger from Vietnam. The laser guided bombs, the tomahawks, the overwhelming air superiority are just more reasons for less body bags returning to America. But, as the Bosnia episode shows, Operation Desert Shield, later Desert Storm was an isolated and *rare* event. IT isn't always that simple!
In my country, India, where we just fought a unrequired, unnecessary skirmish with Pakistan (no value judgements please!) the country watched stunned as bodies and men flew back from the warzone. War is as always a bloody and nasty mess. There are rarely if ever one right side and one wrong side. But the tragedy of watching a wife soldier salute the body of her husband returning from the front in a coffin is something that no one wants to see. It made me gulp back feelings that I didn't know I would feel.
And the fools that start the wars are the ones that it rarely affects. The greatest tragedy of the lot.
K.
All weakness is within you, As is all courage.
Signal 11 Please stop biting my penis, Among falling leaves. --Anonymous P
I haven't read the book yet, so I'll have to rely on Mr. Katz's comments on it (though my interest is piqued).
In many ways, it appears that the problem with "rogue nations" around the world - countries like Iraq who "peacefully" invade others, or countries like Serbia or Russia who are hunting down "terrorists" in other countries, all the while killing everyone they can get their hands. It's like watching bears on National Geographic, how the male bears will kill any cubs it finds to ensure the survival of its own offspring. (I might be a little off there, I haven't watched National Geographic since I was a kid).
But it seems to me that this problem is no more different than watching bullies in junior high and high school, picking on those smaller and weaker than themselves. I guess I was lucky; back in school I was the "geeky jock", the kid who liked computers and played football and wresling and the like. But the few times I did have a run in with a bully, I quickly learned a valuable lesson: the only way to stop a bully is to destroy them. Completly. Humiliate them, break bones, whatever it takes. To hurt them so badly that they never, ever even think about hurting someone else again. I'm the nicest guy in the world. But sometimes, fear and pain are the only remaining solutions.
I have come to believe that the biggest part of the problem with helping out countries in need (this is coming from a US standpoint, so forgive me if this offends people of other nationalities) is that we're too "nice" about it. "Oh, look, these people are starving. Let's throw food at them." The problem of local warlords stealing the food to buy planes (how the hell does Etheopia get planes for war, when all I keep hearing about it how drought is killing people left and right?). "Look, this ethnic group is getting killed. Let's protect them with smart missiles! But we can't hurt any civilians!" Overlooked is the fact that in war, there are no civilians or soldiers; in war, everyone is the enemy.
WWII was won when nearly everything in Berlin was being bombed to the dust. When Japan realized the power of the atomic bomb, and how it would destroy nearly everything. The Civil War was won in large part I believe by Sherman's March, when everything that could burn was torched to the ground, and the "civilians" were forced to rethink having black people as slaves.
War sucks. But if you're going to do it, let's stop with the "Oh, don't hurt the innocents!" Serbia might not be a problem if the NATO forces had realized that to end the problem, that a total change had to be made. Total surrender from Serbia, then a McCarthy plan to reshape the government into one that gives the citizens a voice.
The second part is the most important. You see, I discovered something else about bullies in my years of school. After you've broken them, the most important thing to do afterwards is to make them your friend, to show them the right way to act. A bully unbroken is a bully. A bully broken is nothing more than a whipped dog. A bully made into a friend can be the most powerful thing a person can have.
My rants over. Have a nice day.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
We don't just like games, we love them!
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
A "virtual war" in Ignatieff's work, is a fiction, invented by the American armed forces. It is not some Web based DDOS attack, or anything to do with the 'net. He is talking about how the armed forces want to portray themselves as powerful, and inflicting massive damages, without actually putting themselves at risk. Arguably, minimizing their involvement.
Once the smart bombs have blown up the wooden shacks and accidentally destroyed the embassies, and the 'bad guys' leave, the real work begins, with soldiers on the ground. *These* are the ones risking their lives.
IMO, it is not the one who inflicts the most physical damage who is making the greatest contribution, but the one who is willing to make the greatest sacrifice, take the greatest risk for the cause. I have infinitely more respect for infintry cum peace keepers than jet jockies and button pushers on warships. They seem to only die in accidents these days, not in fighting.
The guys in blue helmets, who deliver food, who go door to door looking for weapons stashes, and try to defuse disagreements on the street corner before they get messy are the ones who should be proud.
Killing a lot of people or destroying a lot of hardware is EASY. Any kook with a big enough bomb can do that. Terrorism is much more efficient at that than a military strike. What's hard is actually PURSUING THE GOAL of peace.
At some point, the bombing has to stop in any war, and when it does, what you do next is much more meaningful to determine how things work out in the end.
Military force *IS* a useful, and necessary, last resort. But it should *NOT* be considered a goal or ideal. It should NOT be the chosen path, just because it's easier to justify the deaths of a bunch of people who'll never get on TV than a few GI's on the ground.
I'm from Canada. Can you tell?
Greg
You may find this "compelling and convincing' but on what basis. In fact, I'm curious as to what credentials you or Michael Ignatieff have to comment on war...Have either of you ever been in a combat situation other than to withstand the hail of barbs and arrows that the /. military toss your direction on a regular basis? Stick to what you know, Katz. That would limit the amount of nonsense the rest of us have to endure to "Name, serial # & unit". Actually, in your case that would just be "name".
"Hey, Teacher...Leave those kids alone!"
On the other hand, if we could stop fighting altogether, we could use those machines for far better purposes.
It's a documented fact that the one purpose for giant robots is to fight, and if needed, kill other giant robots. Just look at the heroic deeds of Gigantor, Voltron, and Optimus Prime.
This Sig Intentionally left blank
I remember this old Star Trek episode where two cultures/planets were battling each other on a virtual battlefield. When someone on either side became a casualty they voluntarily stepped into a disintegrator in the real world.
Judging war by any moral standard is absurd. War is the ultimate escalation in disagreement. Once you inject morals into the equation then war is horrid by any standard.
Long before we started this virtual war there was the precedent of the Geneva Convention for civilized warfare. Even that seemed strange- two sides engaged in mortal combat agreeing to policies for treating prisoners. Then you have various International standards for allowed weapons and armorments. Blinding lasers and serrated bayonets are illegal and so are .22 bullets.
Probably the first example of virtual warfare was the arrow. Before that you had to look your enemy in the eye to kill him. Subsequent examples make the killing more and more anonymous. Oops, sorry we dropped thta napalm or the civilian village, just a case of bad information. Or worse yet, sorry for bombing that Chinese Embasy, just a case of bad information.
Back to my origional point, nobody likes war, but in an increasingly irrational world virtual war has proven the most effective means of reducing casualties. For every body left dead on the battlefield there are hundreds of mental casualties stepping away from the field. If war has to be, let it be-- quick and decisive.
It's interesting, this review appearing right after Memorial Day, and after I visited the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton last week. The United States, and perhaps the world at large, is becoming increasingly unwilling to engage in any sort of military action in which friendly casualties might be inflicted, while the number of dictators and violent regimes throughout the world has not gone down.
While there may be less and less chance of any major power in the world going to war against another, with the threat of nuclear reprisals hanging over their heads (although China seems to be increasingly willing to threaten the use of nuclear weapons in offensive actions, judging by the rhetoric of their military), the number of regimes like that in Serbia and the Sierra Leone rebels, for instance, does not seem to be on a downward turn.
The United States does not seem to be prepared, mentally or physically, to engage in any sort of real warfare anymore, preferring to try a slipshod aerial bombardment approach that can only work when backed up by forces on the ground. Instead, we claim victory but do nothing of real value and attain neither our goal of a peaceful resolution or an end to the suffering that prompted our action in the first place.
The last generation that remembers that sometimes, in a war, a lot of people have to die in order to save the rest of us, and that some of those people might be in your family, that they might even be you, is slowly dying off. Soon there will be no one left who remembers that, and that's going to be a scary time, because all that's needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing, which is exactly what they want to do now.
To be honest, I found this review sort of ironic coming from Jon Katz, who, while I usually find his columns interesting, seems to trumpet the call of how technology is going to make the world some sort of wonderful new place -- making the same mistake that people who think smart bombs and cruise missiles are going to make war nice and tidy do.
--
We are, he cautions, setting an awful precedent -- it's all right to unleash fearful weapons on unseen targets if you do so in the name of human rights.
Oh, puhleeeeze.
(1) Why is the precedent awful?
(2) Is it OK if you don't "unleash", but simply shoot?
(3) Is it OK if the weapons are not "fearful"?
(4) Is it OK if you see the target before shooting? Do you have to see it with unaided eye, or can optics and/or electronics help?
And as to awful precedents, I would like to point out two: Pol Pot's Cambodia and Rwanda.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
let me say that I'd far rather that some Servian cibilians were killed accidentally than any of our soldiers
That said, I think it's time I changed my
You've been studying Katz' work too closely.
You managed to piece together a wonderful collage of buzzwords, circular reasoning, and a brilliant Subject line that combined say exactly nothing.
The virtual world is a mirror or the real world?
What planet are you from again?
I imagine that would provide us with much different candidates for President than we see now...
"Governor Bush? How is your aim compared to the war-trained eye of Senator McCain?"
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
2) The same people who are now wringing their hands over Bush's failure to wipe out the Iraqi government would have screamed bloody murder if the war went on for one more day than it had to. Removing a dictator means occupying a country until a new government can be established. Does anybody really think we were prepared to do that in '91? The Gulf War was not about human rights. It was about restoring the balance of power in the Middle East.
3) We live in a democracy, and Clinton never really had popular support for an extended war in Kosovo. While some leaders (FDR, Reagan, etc.) might have used the media to persuade the nation of the importance of the cause, Clinton (for better or worse) is not that kind of President. Personally, I think Clinton took the right approach when he limited our involvement, although at the time I thought that we should have stayed out entirely (and still do, somewhat).
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I found a link to a synopsis or the old Star Trek Show Episode about virtual war A Taste of Armageddon
Which wars? I'll assume (because it will annoy you immensely) that you mean the Great War ('First World War') which arose from the assassination of the heir to a petty dictatorship ('the Habsburg empire') by a Serbian nationalist (Gavrilo Princip) in the capital of Bosnia (Sarajevo). The results included millions of deaths, the founding of the League of Nations, the tragically misjudged Treaty of Versailles, the collapse of the Tsars and the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, the second world war as a consequence of the bungling of the first, massive european immigration to the USA, the cold war between the USA and the USSR (see above under 'bolshevism'), the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Bay of Pigs (see above under 'cold war'), the wasting of (n.b. Sagan NEVER said it...) billions and billions of US tax dollars on a stupid arms race, McCarthyism, ....
Let the rest of the world go down the toilet, it's none of our concern
Shamanic Wisdom 101: 'Everything is part of everything else'. You need people to trade with. You need a halfway habitable planet. Let's say Libya decides to nuke Israel, or vice versa. May be miles away, but the damage would be worldwide. No sunlight for a few months. No potable water. Crops dying, livestock dying. At some point you need to be involved, because regardless of your intentions you are involved.
When our grandfathers went to war, they were prepared to kill. But they were also prepared to die. What I find really hard to stomach is soldiers who are plenty happy to 'kill, kill, kill, burn women chidren and villages', but draw the line at the possibility of getting injured, let alone killed. War is a filthy business, and that's basically a good thing, IMHO
TomV
The main reason the wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Vietnam were fought and "won" against different "enemies" has more to do with public perception and national interest than with questions of human rights.
Remember, as well, that there are only three types of strategies: occidental, chinese and "japanese".
Here are just a couple of examples of what I mean:
So... As far as I am concerned, there are no "good" or "bad" wars. All wars are just determined by national self-interest, which then influences public perception of the war.
Kosovo (and the rest of the Balkans) are a complete mess because public perception and self interest were out of whack. The sad thing is that most industrial and military powers in the world today could not care less if the Serbs massacred all Kosovars (and butcher they did). Half-hearted attempts were made to find a diplomatic solution. Then, a half-hearted attempt was made at stopping the bloodshed. When in doubt, bomb 'em back to the Stone Age! Predictable result: the serb civilians rallied around the flag and supported the murderous tactics of their government.
Why are the Balkans still a mess? Because occidental powers have no national interest in solving the long-term problems in the region. Watch the situation in Montenegro: this is probably going to be the next Croatia or Kosovo. All of this because national interest is the dominant force behind the wars men wage.
Clemenceau was right when he said: "war is waged by nice people who kill each other without even knowing their names, all of this to the benefit of perfect b______s, who know each other very well, but will never kill each other"...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
I imagine that would provide us with much different candidates for President than we see now...
"Governor Bush? How is your aim compared to the war-trained eye of Senator McCain?"
Come off of it. If Americans had to vote on President based on physical prowess you'd have The Rock in there in no time at all... :)
In the olden days, people used to make blood sacrifices to gods so that their war campaigns would be successful. Skipping the sacrifice would not be "right".
Nowadays, Mr.Ignatieff argues that we should restore the practice. It isn't "right" otherwise -- how could you run a decent, "moral" war without copious blood being spilled?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
On the one hand, Katz once again demonstrates his ignorance and his dislike for anything "American" by going on about the "uniquely American" slant on automated killing. The Chinese invented guns, the British invented the longbow, the Germans invented poison gas, the British decided to bomb Germany only at night and from high altitudes during WWII, etc, etc, all with the intent of maximizing damage to the enemy while minimizing loss to one's own troops. "Smart bombs" and the policy of not descending below 15,000 feet to drop them (as was done over Kosovo) is just an extension of that same mentality, not some new exclusively American slant on war.
That being said, the real reason for the sort of standoff warfare (I'll refrain from using the completely incorrect term "virtual war") in places like Kosovo is that there isn't sufficient political motivation for anything else. Look what happened to Bush and Clinton when we all saw American troops killed and humiliated in Somalia. The political price was far worse than when we saw POWs on Iraqi TV in 1991. Why? The Gulf War had an enormous base of popular support behind it, but the Somalia intervention did not. Likewise, the Kosovo action didn't have strong American support - most Americans felt that it was a European problem that should have been taken care of by Europeans, and they felt that putting US troops in harm's way (more than they already were) was not justified. Had a US armored division entered Kosovo and started slugging it out with the Serbian army, the US would doubtless have won, but the political and human cost would have been unacceptable. Cynically, it's the political cost that made the decision, but the outcome was the same.
So... The only new and unique thing about the new standoff warfare is the way it expresses ambiguity. When there is enough political will to do something about a situation, but not enough public support to put large numbers of American lives at risk, we'll send in the smart bombs. Militarily it doesn't accomplish much, but the collapsed bridges and exciting footage of airplanes taking off and landing is clear evidence that we're doing something!
I think the real issue is that the politicians are sending American soldiers, who are trained in warfare, to go and deal with humanitarian problems. These missions aren't war, but essentially peacekeeping missions and we're using warfare (of all things) to try to "keep the peace".
The goal in the Balkan "war" was to keep the various ethnic groups from killing each other. How did we try to achieve that? By fighting the Serbs, and attempting (in a few ways) to get rid of their leader.
I understand fully the arguement about how it is dangerous to fight a war without any risk, but what other methods are available when you're given an impossible mission by politicians? (By the way, we want you to solve a centries old conflict in a few weeks with no casualties. What?)
Personally, in the instance of the Balkan war, I think the military leaders made the right decision in trying to alleviate risk to soldiers. Now, if we could only get the troops that are still there back home....
This is another view of the world.
That said, all it really takes is that one in a thousand psycho who really loves the violence to make a war brutal. All Germans weren't horrible just ad all Bosnians are not. When that rare psycho in in charge, so much the worse.
As far as pointing the blame finger to any nation for making the world as it is, choose France and Russia. By brutalizing their own people or putting in place governments willing to brutalize their own people they are largely to blame for the events of the last 100 years. See Etheopia, Serbia , Vietnam, Chechnya, Afghanastan, .....
In case anybody here hasn't read the book by Sun Tzu, they should. It's an excellent work, that may be better interpreted as The Art of Conflict. Anyway, on to my view, people go to war for the purpose of survival, or to enhance their power, real(land, resources, etc.) or perceived(other nations fear them). It was a lot easier to "rally the troops" when the general population's sources of information was limited or non-existent, people couldn't really make a sound judgement. "Why are we going to war? Cause the king said so." It also made it very easy to use the "us vs. them" mentality. Technology makes this much more difficult nowdays. People can actually communicate with people from other places via (newspaper, tv, radio, internet, etc.) To me, the amazing thing is that most of the time you find out that people are more alike than different, thus making it more difficult to do the "us vs. them" method. Sometimes I find it incredible that people forget that "evil" and "good" don't wear uniforms. It's the individual that makes the decisions. Perhaps we need to have personal wars. end semi-coherent comment.
Kosovar: Citizen of Kosovo
Kosova: No Idea.
risk-adverse: opposed or opposite of risk
risk-averse: disinclined from risk
I almost typed "disinclined toward risk" then realized that this would not make sense. You even have to be careful in that respect.
Lowmag.net
I fail to see the point. First of all, without the "strong arm" of the US (and NATO) approxamitly 1.000.000 kosovar albanians would have been slowly grind to pulp by a regime that based it's popularity on making Kosovo Polje "Serb" again. Granted we would have been much more at ease with it since killing 80 people here and 15 people there, would have made very lowzy soundbites, so we would have heard very little of it in the long run (But hack who cares it's not my family, right?) The same goes for that patch of land the size of rode island south-east of Irak (I mean who really gives a f*ck). Politics and political intentions are NEVER honorable. Not because they are dishonest but because they have no value in that sence. Politics are a representation of the will of a population ( I love Polls ). Except in countries like the above mentioned where politics is PRECISELY what everybody in the normal world does NOT want. War is merely a continouence of politics by other means(Crimson Tide). The concept of a toll-free war is absurd because it is presicely that toll which should persuade to act differently. It is however the intention of any general to minimize damage to his own resources. It's a "simple" calculation of how much is what worth (human lifes measured in training and expertize; cold, crude but true). It is much cheaper by any standard to drop a $100.000 missile then it is to lose $10.000.000 trained pilots or $500.000 trained infantery. Let alone the cost of budget cuts when fighting an unpopular war (lots of deaths of your own). It makes perfect sence to use these methods precisely because they are so cost effective. Which brings me to the final point. If this books says on the one hand that virtual wars only cost less lifes on the side of the electronicaly savvy then how come those tanks ROLED out of the bushes. The war was won, NOT on the premise that in order to win a war the opposite side needs to surrender completely and a huge pile of dead soldiers need to prove it. The war was won because the opposite side desided that the loss would be greater than the gain ECONOMICALY. WAR = POLITICS = ECONOMICS It has been for the past 3.500.000 years and it will always stay that way. No tech will ever change that. ps. I'm neither a US citizen not an army man. I was raised a passivist turned in to scepticist converted to a realist hopefull to be an optimist (once).
Alex, so long as mass graves keep being found in Kosovo and Bosnia, and as long as Radko Mladic and
hsi henchmen still walk free, I have no sympathy for Serbs who whine about not getting the govenment TV station. To downplay the role Milosovic and Serbia had in genocide through out the Balkans in the name of Serb nationalism, just to show how some innocent civilian were hurt in the cross fire is missing the point.
The Serbs have the government they deserve. If they don't get rid of it, by any means nessesary, then they are just as culpable through in-action as the Serb police who lined up Muslim men and women and shot them into ditches.
Sure there are a lot of Mexicans in Texas, but I don't remember too many of them being gunned down systematically by the Texas Rangers. And if it ever does happen, I hope the rest of the world DOES bomb the US and occupy Texas.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
As for why Milosivic is still in power: we did not fight a war to remove him from power. As for why Saddam Husein is still in power, the allied commanders felt there was value in maintaining a regional balance of power instead of going for total victory. My opinion is: there is no substitute for total victory. The balance of Iraq vs. Iran could have been better maintained with allies rather than with a reduced enemy.
Were you there? I was sent there for a four-month tour in '98, as part of a "peace-keeping" mission. I was attached to the NATO headquarters as an Air Force communications troop outside of Sarajevo. The captial of Bosnia, Sarajevo was subjected to nearly two years of seige by Bosnian Serbs who were backed by Milosevic. So many people died during that seige that every open space was used as graveyard. I can't tell you how many times we were thanked by the people who had to live through this for stepping in and stopping the killing. Indiscriminate killing? How does raining mortar shells on a marketplace sound? Nearly seventy people were killed when the Serbs launched that attack on a quiet Sunday morning. How dare those people try to buy bread! Yes, the US military is overused (and misused) when it comes to peacekeeping missions, but if we belong anywhere it is in the Balkans. Oh, and "Who had ever heard of Serbia or Bosnia before the wars over there?" WWI started in Sarajevo when Archduke Ferdinand was assasinated by a Serbian Facist. Some of the bloodiest fighting of WWII took place in these same Balkans, as Nazis, Communists, Allies, and Muslims fought for dominance. Learn a little history before you spout off. As a well-travelled American, I can confidently state that our brutal ignorance of anything that doesn't happen right in front of our faces is one reason why people despise us.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
As I see it, the greatest danger here is that we (as the Western World) have lost the willpower to actually place our troops in harm's way. Politicians (rightly enough) see media coverage of dead Americans (or Canadians in my country's case) as something negative which will be remembered the next time we visit the polls, so they are unwilling to risk casualties to achieve a national goal. The public's knowledge of what is at stake is entirely shaped by the media - who do not have "The Truth" in mind when they formulate a broadcast, but rather "The Ratings" (ie advertising potential) - and as a result the public is happy to see high-tech wizardry saving potential casualties to achieve some particular goal that they have been made to understand is important.
Mind you, The troops themselves are still motivated to risk their lives when directed, but it seems the political will to implement their use is utterly missing.
The problem with this is that artillery and aircraft have never one a war, it requires infantry on the ground occupying key targets to defeat an enemy. Unfortunately, this means casualties in any conflict - high tech wizardry can only limit the number of casualties, not eliminate them.
Events like Kosovo do not resolve situations, only delay them. The Balkans will errupt again in the next few years because we failed to solve the problem there, same as with Iraq. The folks that started the conflict on the other side are still in power in both cases.
One of the prime causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was the fact that they had hired foreign troops to defend it, and when push came to shove those troops were not motivated enough to actually be effective. I sincerely hope that high tech weapons and button pushing are not our "foreign troops"...
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I agree with you sir!
You are one of the first posts here that has made any sense. Where are those moderator points!!!
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I wish I could write with laser-like authority. Pehchew! Pehchew! Respect my laser-like authority!
The longbow was actually invented by the Welsh, not the English. The English tended to use the Welsh archers in their army. At Crecy and so on, the archers were Welshmen drafted into the English army.
Interestingly, Micro$oft's Age of Empires ][ has the longbow as the English's specialist weapon despite there being a Celts army. I know it's a small thing, but it really bugs me.
read "Enders Game" by F. Scott Card. describes all of this to a 'T' imho war is war...money is money and if you think the two are seperated at all you are the fool.
God is real, unless declared integer.
The Gulf War Did Not Take Place
Of relevance to Slashdot's audience, artificially-lowered oil prices keep the costs of computer manufacture and delivery down, fueling the information age.
It might not only have been a war fought in the vein of a "Blood for Oil" trade but a "Blood for Computers" trade, too. America's current prosperity has its roots in maintaining an uneasy sovereignty in the Middle East.
The idea that soldiers are allowed to be killed, but not civilians seems strange to me. I suppose that in the West where most soldiers are volunteers it has a certain logic. However, many soldiers around the world are forced into the army. Is it more right to kill a 12-year-boy in a uniform than a civilian?
Would you want your sister getting cluster-bombed?
Err, I'd be just as upset if she was bombed after joining the army as if she had been if she was walking around a shopping centre. I fail to see your point.
As a well-travelled American, I can confidently state that our brutal ignorance of anything that doesn't happen right in front of our faces is one reason why people despise us.
Well, not all of you :) No, you do hit the nail on the head there - there are a lot of Americans who a) don't know and b) don't care about anything outside of their neighbourhood, and yet when their time comes they feel free to spout off about international issues. It's not all of you, hell, it may not be many of you, but it's certainly a loud group, and *really* annoying...
Well, perhaps it hasn't reached the land of the AC yet. US satellite photos from Bosnia show that the Serbs exhuumed many mass graves around Sreberniza after the war was over in 95 in order to cover up the massacres, to hide the evidence. This was admitted into evidence at the War Crimes Tibunal in the Hague last week at the trial of one of the generals involved in the massacre.
Besides, even if "some" of the photos were faked by a German General (how ironic) that in no way negates the truth about what has and still is happening in the Balkans at the hands of fanatical Serb Facists (Please take this in the way it is intended...The Serbs as a people are not facists. This comment is directed at those Serbs, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, who happily took part in the repression and killing of their fellow citizens based solely on nationality or religion. Some Bosnians and Croats aren't much better, but at the moment most of the atrocities seem to be commited by Serbs or in response to atrocities commited by Serbs).
If All are faked, why has an International War Crimes Tribunal indicted most of the Serb leader ship, both military and civillian from both Bosnia and Serbia proper? As a matter of Fact, why does the Tribunal even exist?
Read my sig...get a clue. Don't be an apologist for evil.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
It seems to me that this makes a pretty strong case against getting involved in the new conflict, seeing as we all made such a muck of it last time.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I can't say for sure whether this is true of the actual book, but in the review at least, this guy doesn't seem to be correctly backing up his conclusions. He seems to be arguing two different points; one, that "virtual war" (as he calls it) is not effective, and two, that it is morally wrong. He points to the fact that Saddam is still in power, the Serbs are gearing up for another offensive, etc, etc, as proof that virtual war is not effective. It's true, the Gulf War and the Kosovo intervention didn't exactly break the back of the resistance, but he doesn't give any concrete proof that the "virtual war" style of warfare employed in those combats was the reason for this. One could easily point to World War I, one of the bloodiest and most infantry-based combats in history, and note that a short time (historically speaking) later, Germany was geared up and even more aggressive and dangerous. Now, it wouldn't be very logical to actually use that example in an argument, because to do so ignores the immensely complex political situation in Europe at that time, and the rebuilding of Germany in particular. However, the author does much the same thing, by blithely ignoring the political situations that surround these armed conflicts in favor of decrying the United States style of "virtual warfare" as the ONLY reason that those wars were, in his view, somewhat less than fully effective. This is at best shoddy logic and at worst blatant verbal manipulation in the interests of propaganda. The authors second point (which, in the passages quoted, often seems to be confused with the first) is that virtual warfare is somehow immoral; that it is not morally correct for us to "unleash frightful weaponry" on other people unless we run the same risk. This is quite simply ludicrous. If someone is attempting to mug me with a knife, and I'm carrying a gun, should I refrain from pulling it out to defend my possessions simply because I don't stand the same risk of bloodshed as he does? Certainly, our intervention in Iraq and Kosovo may be morally questionable. But even if one decides that we were morally wrong for intervening militarily, this doesn't make our method of "virtual warfare" morally incorrect; if we were wrong for intervening, were were wrong no matter WHAT military options we used to intervene, be they sattelite-targeted laser strikes or thrown rocks. In short, the author of the book seems to be arguing that our interventions in recent conflicts have been ineffective and morally wrong, and then using that conclusion as proof that "virtual warfare" is ineffective and morally wrong. Even if one grants him that our interventions WERE, in fact, ineffective and morally wrong, this does not in and of itself prove that our style of "virtual warfare" is the root cause of such. One of the basic axioms of statistical science is that "Correlation does not imply causation." The fact that the author appears to use correlation as his only proof for causation is a sign of either shoddy thinking or deliberate misleading propaganda. FatherDog "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it." -George Bernard Shaw http://www.tcnj.edu/~moraski2
That's where I disagree with both you and the premise of the book/article. Neither Korea nor Vietnam were any more legitimate than Iraq; in many ways they were less so, since Iraq was busy decimating Kuwait. We rode to the rescue with smart bombs, better radar, etc.
What's the difference? It cost us fewer lives than Korea or Vietnam, and was more successful. And you claim that makes it wrong? Or that we entered too easily?
Lastly, allow me to point out that the U.S. has been reluctant to enter/support many of the recent U.N. policing activities. We seem to still be war-averse, not because of the risk but because we've learned that we should go in without a clear exit goal.
I was a rifle company XO in the 3-14 INF, 10th Mountain Division, and was deployed in the Lower Jubba Valley of Somalia from December of '91 to late March of '92.
I can't hope to compete intellectually with those of you who have seen all the Star Trek episodes, ready all the political science books, and figured it all out. However, I can offer a few observations based on my experience.
1) Anyone who tells you, based on watching television and reading the newspaper, that they really know what's going on in a war zone is totally full of shit. Usually the people on the ground don't even know exactly what's going on.
2) If you carry that analogy to the air, do you think the guys in their fast-movers really know what they're dropping their bombs on, or whether they were successful? After the USAF claimed to have knocked out scores of Scud launchers (in the desert, perhaps the most benign environment possible for air warfare), the GAO did a review and determined that in actuality, they had knocked out ZERO Scuds on the ground.
3) In order to prevail over the long haul in any kind of sustained military or military/humanitarian mission, you need to commit to a sustained presence on the ground. So-called precision warfare from the air can be quite helpful (note that the North Vietnamese returned to the discussion table after the US unleashed the B-52s), but it is part of a mix of capabilities necessary to achieve the long-term POLITICAL goals of the operation.
4) As a guy named Clausewitz has mentioned before, war is an extension of politics. Politics and economics are in most cases joined at the hip, not because economics is an evil that infects politics, but because economics is an essential component of human existence. We all want, but there is only a finite supply.
5) If the political will isn't there, it ain't gonna happen. To those of you who were around during the Vietnam era, this will sound familiar, but we really were making good progress in Somalia. The failed Mogadishu raid was in military terms, a great success. A difficult, extremely grueling mission where men lost their lives, but in persuit of a difficult goal, it was a big success. People back home saw the bodies being carried through the streets, and decided it was not worth losing American lives to save Somalis from themselves. Note that there were stupendously stupid battles during WWII, with casualties well over 50%. Had any of these battles occurred today, those in charge would be sacked, condemned, and punished. It's economics - saving Europe was important then. Saving Europe is kind of important now, but most Americans would just rather let the Europeans figure out how to do it themselves.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Once again, a writer states the obvious, and the "intellectuals" wring their hands that the sky has begun to fall.
Who was it who said in the Fourteenth century that "war was obsolete" with the invention of the crossbow? Why did he say that? Because it was the beginning of accurate, deadly war at a distance. It was all about "remote" killing of the enemy, while providing maximal protection of your own forces.
It amazes me that Katz believes protecting your forces from harm is a new style of war. Every defensive technology is about protecting your forces, from mechanized tanks to cruise missiles launched from ships.
Now, this is not to say that the nature of war has not changed in the 20th century. Clearly weapons of mass destruction are new (Mutual Assured Destruction), but that's all that is new in the art of warfare. Ironically, MAD has been the most stabilizing influence in history.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
First, on the Book:
It does bring out some very thought-provoking topics. It is the ultimate goal of any military type: to kill as many of the enemy as you can without getting a single scratch on yourself. But how moral is this? (to the extent killing is "moral") Access to technology often equals to power. And we don't want powerful people to be cowards, because this can lead to *very* uncomfortable situations (you know what the coward does when he's not enjoying a situation...).
Apart from the topics the book discusses, a war is by no means the best way to resolve a conflict. We keep bragging about our technological advances. OK, but that's pretty much all the advancing we've done lately. Take a human of, say, the 15th century and take your neighbours. Apart from that we have adapted to the contemporary technology (we know what a plane is and what a PC does and how to use toilet paper, for example), how different are we from our 15th century ancestors?
I don't think we are as different as we want to believe. Any significant advances in technology should be accompanied by equivalent advances in humanity. So that we can make wise use of that technology and not harm ourselves in the way.
I see every gov't and business guys thinking about and promoting only technological proliferation, disregarding, if not hindering in a way, mental.
Hence, this book points out some topics that every one of us should think about, since we are a member of a forum about technology. Kind of reminded me that article that was posted sometime in March (I think) about an engineer at Sun and what he thought of the future and technology.
Now, as for the poster's comment:
I cannot comment on that as I do not know the exact details of the situation. However, I tend to agree.
Other things I'd like to point out, complementarily:
1. The Serbians may have done some bad things but they weren't the only ones. The US and NATO guided the press very nicely in both cases: a.) effectiveness of the weaponry b.) who's the bad guy. Things weren't black but they weren't white either...
2. It definitely wasn't for humanitarian reasons. Once blood has been drawn, it's been drawn. And US/NATO troops shed lots of it. I come from very near those areas (Greece, if you wondered) and I know that this war didn't help alleviate the conflict. Think about it. They now have memories from a full-scale war to throw at each other. This situation has made them far more fanatic than they probably would have been if things were let to go unaffected.
3. Benefits for the US (and allies):
a. The area now needs rebuilding from scratch. Guess who is borrowing them money and signing contracts...
b. A nice chance to test any untested new weapons in a real situation (tell me that this wouldn't be tempting!).
c. Justify "other" expenses as war-expenses. ("Where did that money go, Bill/Whoever?" -"War expenses...")
d. As somebody else said: keep the public busy on that while we... (god knows what)
e. Ever heard that in Kosovo (or around there) there are some quite rich uranium ores and many other minerals??? Think of some nations who'd like to control that... (not necessarily the US, but that's another thing to think about)
4. Have you ever considered the ecological disasters this brought about? Certainly not to the States, but countries like Bulgaria, Greece and Italy will definitely be affected. I know that because I live in the "neighbourhood". I guess it wasn't given much press coverage that some of the "smart" missiles landed INSIDE the perimeter of a nuclear energy plant in Bulgaria (thankfully without exploding)!
5. Oh, by the way, did you guys know that the US/NATO went ahead to wage this war without having an approval from the UN (I think) Security Council (which was supposed to approve any such actions first, and then...)? I didn't hear much about this piece of news in the media...
Finally, contrary to what you might think, I am *not* anti-American. I respect this country but I prefer to keep my own/different opinion on some matters and not just gulp whatever the mainstream press "offers".
Trian
--
I know one thing: that I know nothing.
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
Kosova and Kosovo are variant spellings that approximate the prononunciation of a word that is written in different alphabets to English. Albanians and Serbians pronounce it differently as well--but I can't remember which way round it is.
-Elendale (this isn't supposed to be a flame, BTW)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
I agree with the bulk of your comments, but would argue as well that sometimes the national self-interests can be more abstracted and considered over a longer timescale in some wars than others.
In World War II, the American contribution to the UK was crucial long before Pearl Harbour, and despite a very strong isolationist and even pro-Nazi public contingent for which Charles Lindberg was a "convenient idiot", to use a Lenin quote from another context.
WWII was a Good war to fight because if the US hadn't fought in the 40's, they would have been hit by V-2 successors hitting New York from Nazi-occupied Britain before the 1950's (Werner von Braun was asked to design such weapons during the war).
Korea was also pretty clearly beating back an invasion from a civil war, successful because the South resisted such invasion and did not want to be ruled by the northern half of the country. The US felt they had to "draw a line in the sand" to avoid further communist expansion (a policy called "containment").
Unfortunately, although Viet Nam resembled the Korean situation (a civil war, the northern half communist and bordering on the People's Republic of China, a corrupt southern plutocracy), the populace was mostly Buddhist while the plutocracy was mostly Christian, the populace had been denied the vote to reunite the country and the plutocracy in Viet Nam, unlike Korea, was far less willing to share the wealth, or at least to allow the brighter poor people to be co-opted by (join) the plutocracy.
Viet Nam may have been a turning point in the Cold War, but regardless of the lives of all the western soldiers (Australian, New Zealand, South African, Canadian, French and others as well as American) lost there, it's a drop in the bucket compared to the Vietnamese civilian deaths, much less the deaths of civilians in communist gulags.
Remember more people died under Stalin and Mao than under Hitler or Hirohito, although not from lack of trying....
The other wars and "police actions" were less about national self-interest than corporate interests (Honduras, Chile, Guatamala... thank you, US Fruit Company!) or were simply the unwillingness to share trade (WWI) or to insure that one man no longer controlled by the US (although previously trained by the CIA and the military) would not control a quarter of the world's oil production (Gulf War 91).
After all, thank God that we were fighting to keep Kuwait democratic so that women could vote, all citizens, not just those who owned property there prior to 1923 could vote... what, you mean Kuwait *still* only allows males whose ancestors owned property prior to 1923 to vote? What is this, a plutocracy?
I am particularly depressed that you failed to mention Rwanda/Burundi and the mutual massacre of Hutus and Tutsis by very low tech means, as contrasted with guns and shellings in the Balkans. At least in the Balkans, the mess is as a result of a few power-mad assholes with guns as contrasted with a more general genocide in Africa.
In brief, there *can* be good wars. They're just a lot more rare than we have been *lead* to think.
BTW, I'm Canadian, and I knew one of the Canadians who won the Victoria Cross in WWI when I went to law school in Halifax in the late 1980's.
Are we doomed to live out all these plots from the original series, or just those authored by Gene L. Coon? If so, I suggest we just skip to Shore Leave. But let's agree to get rid of Finigan early on.
I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer Jim!
LIVE on TNT, from the UN Arena in downtown Manhattan it's....
World Diplomacy Nitro Live!!!
Tonight in our main event, US President Jessee "The Body" Ventura fights Saddam "The Iron Sheik" Hussain in a no-holds-barred cage match to determine once and for all who gets to control Kuwait!!!
But first, Slobo "The Butcher" Milosovich fights to keep Serbia's right to murder Albanians. But WAIT!!! He's fighting to keep *Austrian* peacekeepers out of Kosova! And you know what that means, ladies and gentlemen. Repersenting his native Austria against Milosovich: Arnold "The Terminator" Schwartzenegger!!!
Let's get rrready to RRRRUMBLE!!!!
Cue theme music....
Ya know? That might not be a bad idea at all!
john
Imagine all the people...
The point of "virtual war" is precisely that American foreign policy is severely constrained by the American people's unwillingness to sustain serious casualties. This is a very good development as it will lower the risk of the U.S. becoming involved in a poorly thought out engagement.
In fact if you look at the "virtual wars" such as Kosovo and Desert Storm, both of them turned out to be pretty much impossible to win long term with a "virtual" approach and would have been ungodly expensive disasters with a conventional armed forces approach.
We should cheer this development -- now all we need to do is hope this century brings more highly developed democracies scared to death to go to war.
Just like anything else in a world of conflict, "Virtual War" is just an adaptation to stay ahead of the game. Let's face it, someone comes up with the first new weapon like a tank, a plane, or an atom bomb or whatever. Someone is the first to create a weapon and then someone else either develops the same thing or a counter to it. For simplicity sake, take a tank for instance. A tank is developed and then a anti-armor piercing artillery shell or missile (Hellfire) is developed to counter the tank. This is then countered with heavier armor which in turn a better artillery shell or missile is then produced to counter the heavier armor. Or, a plane is produced so other planes are created and AAA or SAMS are created to counter the plane. So then stealth is introduced and then advanced radar to detect stealth is created and so on. An atom bomb is created; another country creates the atom bomb and after that, we try to counter with a missile defense system like STAR WARS (although to our knowledge, hasn't been developed yet). Virtual War is just another stepping-stone to get an advantage over an adversary. Yes, I would agree with the author that other countries will soon develop the technology for "Virtual Warfare", but until then, it appears the U.S. has the current advantage. I don't see Virtual Warfare as being morally wrong or right; it's just the evolution of technological warfare, nothing more. I see the future as being fought with un-manned jets, maybe mechanical soldiers, this being done to lesson the human loss for whichever country is using the tactic of "Virtual Warfare". Heck, maybe it will end up being like Star Wars Episode 1 or Terminator where the droids and machines are the ones fighting until one side surrenders. I guess my point is this; with the growth of technology, how could we ignore the advances and abilities it gives us. If we don't use it, someone else will. And by that we would leave ourselves vulnerable to the "Virtual Warfare" of other countries.
In all this literary discussion about tactics and technologies, people are discussing trivialities, when compared to the big picture. You are accepting and taking for granted the initial, important decision that determines everything else: should we get involved in a military conflict? What reasons do we have? Are there any other avenues to explore?
Books like this sicken me, because they assume that the US has every right to beat up other nations for their national self-interest, as another poster put it - although that term is misleading because "national interest" is the interest of the elite power structure, a far cry from the population.
Kosovo was a mess before NATO stuck their noses (brown from kissing major US ass) into the mess. And don't you dare tell me they tried to "negotiate". Rambouillet was "give us the right to piss and trample on your country or we kick your f______ ass." That's not negotiation, that's bullying. As a side note, its interesting to note that the agreement signed by all parties after the "Virtual War" was very similar to what Milosevic said he would agree to at Rambouillet. NATO is the one that conceded nearly everything...
NATO did Milosevic a huge favour by uniting Serbs under him, getting all UN observers to leave a war zone so he could freely accellerate the murders and ethnic cleansing, etc. US generals admitted these results were completely predictable, and expected. NATO bombs helped kill off a bunch of Kosovars by "accident", too. Net result: some Serb buildings destroyed (which we have to help pay to rebuild), and most Kosovars gone. Who seems the victor?
What kind of a country are you guys running, that after this massacre caused in the name of "human rights" you soberly discuss wether using high-tech weapons in war is moral or not??!!
There is a war in a far away place mentioned in part of the book. But the ppl we are sending to fight don't really die because that is to horrible to think of. It was all to far away for people to think about and to them, not real. I believe Virtual War sounds like it brings out the same principle, instead of hiding the fact the ppl are dying, we send machines we don't have to care about to do the dirty work.
With all the technology we use it is sometimes easy to forget that war is imposing the will of your nation on that of another sovern nation by force, i.e. we kill other ppl to get our way. Until you embrace the fact there are horrible consequences to war, you miss its point and proper application. Because of this I believe it is important to painfully realize the consequenes of pushing that button, your probably going to kill someone, their son, their daughter, or their faimly. If we loose the wisdom that comes with the technology we wield as a weapon, there is the making of a greek tragedy.
BOFH, My model for being a sysadmin :)
thanks.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Part of the reason that the USA was reluctant to enter World War II as a combatant was the public awareness of how the British and others had used lies and propoganda to generate political and military support in World War I. Many of the lies and fabrications were publically exposed in the 1920s, leading to mistrust of European politicians. To many Americans, Europeans killing other Europeans was a European problem.
This author is not really talking about virtual war. Assuming the contemporary definition of "virtual" as "taking place in some computer-generated environment," his description of Kosovo battle is only computer-generated for one side, therefore not "virtual." Now why can't we do REAL virtual war? Let's just improve on the grognard games and real time Command & Conquer. Make one that replicates each country's terrain, urban and climate conditions and all weaponry of modern warfare. Set up a giant server with ridiculously wide bandwidth at the UN. Each country has to purchase its virtual units and defenses with real money from the server, at the same exchange rates in real life. Or perhaps unit costs can be predicated on goods or labor for poorer countries. Each country has to enter into a treaty stating that it will abide by the results of virtual war, should it occur. And then if war breaks out, it breaks out virtual. It might take a long while for people to get used to it, and of course all the R-wingnuts out there would claim it's part of the global UN conspiracy, but . . .
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
I guess you haven't been listening to the news lately: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/international/s tory/0,3604,102378,00.html
Quote from the link above: "These K-For figures suggest that there are as many murders now as there were in the two months of mutual ethnic attacks before Nato air strikes began against Yugoslavia in March - roughly 15 to 20 a week." Happen to know how many Serb civilian were killed by NATO airstrikes? (Hint: it's more than the number of people from all sides that had been killed in Kosovo before the NATO airstrikes.
It looks like that if you are Serb, Roma, muslim Slav, Jew, or even moderate Albanian being killed doesn't count as ethnic cleansing: http://www.seattle-pi.com/opinion/soap131.shtml and http://www.emperors-clothes.com/interviews/ceda.ht m
At least the NATO troops at Kosovo have some perks . http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/02/ 05/timfgneur01001.html?1984
Care to reconsider your views? Maybe human rights didn't have much to do with the Kosovo "virtual war"?
Picking on Canadians (and vice versa) is funny specifically because we get along so well.
My comments in no way were meant to diminish the quaint little commune you call a country. ;)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Funny how totalitarian dictators tend to be "unpopular" among the refugees that escaped from their oppression, eh?
If only these dullards were as enlightened as you, they may have realized how good they had it in Cuba, and would not have risked near-certain death to come here.
I'm going to stop using my +1 mod in this discussion, because I'm starting to get the feeling I am being trolled...
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
There was a sad article in the Sunday NY Times telling how child soldiers have become very widespread in the later part of the 20th century. Weapons are easy enough for children to use. Kids are easy to abduct and brainwash into become fierce soldiers. This dodn't happen as much in earlier centuries when weapons were harder to use and societies has moral codes against militarizing children.
Was the war moraly just? Yep - ethnic cleansing is hateful and should be stopped. When did you heard of Kosovo? Firs time when Clinton administration needed new confilc in oreder to get your attention from their problems. Ethnic cleansing? Can you be more precise? What is the position of albanians now? 99% or something like that. Is this fair?
Right... imagine if the Californians decided they wanted to secede from the union and become a seperate independent country.
My guess is that it would look little different than Kosovo or Chechnya.
Yoe said it nice "Lear a little history". I, as a Serb can say that you do not know it. Whot you written here is not correct. This is good example of virutal war. Someone told you something and you think it is correct. But it isn't...
As entertaining as it may be for us to think of a world with wars fought in VR, the logic of war does not seem to apply here.
What do I mean? Ask any veteran how many people he knew died in vietnam, or world war II, or korea, or desert storm. People died in these wars. The "winning" country only won because they killed more people on the opposing side. Ever hear of a body count? That was the number of people, civilian or not, that were murdered in vietnam, under specific leuitenants. And we didn't "win" in vietnam, even though we killed a great many people.
And the Nazi's didn't win, even though they killed six million jews in their country. Not that they were fighting against jews as a war, more of an ethnic cleansing. And nazi germany didn't "win" against anyone.
So you tell me, if some idiot from your country loses a giant video game, will you give up your land? Your country? Your valuable?
Didn't think so. Bloodshed is a painful but necessary part of war. Fantasize as we may about wars minus death, it will never happen. Don't kid yourself.
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
I think the point is that humans are still the most effective fighting machines, but there's more to it than that.
If we have the ability to wage war without loss of life, what will prevent us from waging war? What motive will we have for not blasting entire civilizations into oblivion, if we can do so without losing any lives of our own, only dollars?
It has nothing to do with honor. If loss of life is no longer an issue for one side, then pacifism becomes a moral ideal with no tangible benefits. The reason WW3 didn't break out between the USA and USSR was -- and this is the truly terrifying thing -- "Mutually Assured Destruction" -worked- as a deterrent. We knew that if we struck first, they'd strike next. Since we both loved our own lives and our children's lives, it was worth it to not go fight a war.
But ask yourself this: Would we have avoided war if one side could destroy the other with impunity, with no repercussions?
The thought of what the USA is so near to achieving -- being able to fight a war with no casualties of its own -- may not be absolutely terrifying to every other nation out there, including our current allies, but it should be.
That's why I stopped working for the defense industry. I cannot support efforts that take the soldier away from the battlefield -- not just because the soldier is a more effective fighter than a machine, but because such a military would have too low of a cost not to use.
Yes, I actually do care just as much about the lives of people thousands of miles away from me as I do about my own.
An army that needs media to convince their people that they have won while in reality they have only produced enough civilian damage for the other side to give up should be reconsidered.
As my Drill Instructor told us, "The idea is not to die for your country, but to make your enemy die for his".
Any technology that keeps friendly troops out of the battle field is good technology.
Although, if these weapons are as precise as they make them out to be, I don't see why enemy troops need to die either... just target the parties responsible. Of course, the US has a policy against assassination. Probably because the policymakers don't want reciprocation from enemy states.
It seems that a very important truth was skipped over by this book.
The only moral existant in war is: He who wins is right. Everything else is commentary.
Americans have not "made it clear that they don't want to get their hands dirty"
Americans have made it clear that they would like to minimized the risk to their soldier's lives.
There is nothing "virtual" about 2,000 pound bombs or warheads. There is nothing "virtual" about the death and destruction that American weapons cause. The Pentagon has no illusions about this and neither does most of the American public. The questions of ethical conduct in the pursuit of war are complex, but the argument that minimizing risk is immoral is worthy of ridicule. The conflict in the little part of our planet that was once known as Yugoslavia was not created by American propaganda and the European nations (with the exception of France) were more risk-averese than the US. Given the history of warfare in Europe -- from the Celts and Romans, through the fine displays of brotherly love that charatererized the middle ages and right up to modern examples of ethical conduct as demonstrated by Napoleon or Kaiser Wilhelm -- it is beyond belief that an educated, intelligent person would try to pass this off as rational argument. It is also sad and troubling that a seemingly bright person like Katz would receive this rubbish so uncritically.
If you are in any doubt about the validity of my argument look up the history of Caesar's reprisals in Gaul. Hundreds of thousands were killed, primarily with pointed or edged weapons. Was that nice, risky, "moral" war? It certainly had the kind of "unambiguous" results apparently favored Katz--You know, going for "unconditional surrender" or good old fashioned genocide
Yeah bring on that old time warfare!
Who had ever heard of Serbia or Bosnia before the wars over there?
I had. Ever heard of the Balkins? The area of the world where World War I started? That's the area.
Oh no, but now there's a few people fighting and killing each other the rest of the world has to intervene for "humanitarian" reasons.
Actually, we were afraid of a repeat of World War I.
No, personally I'm sick of it. The US needs to stop intervening in conflicts which have nothing to do with it.
Actually, we got involved for one simple reason: had we had the forsight to be able to murder Adolf Hitler in the 1920's, should we? Many think "yes" in this country. So we got involved in an outbreak in the Balkins because some in the US state department were afraid that perhaps, we were seeing the rise of another Adolf Hitler.
It's that fear, that we were about to see the seeds of World War III, that caused us to step in.
"The marching of an army into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you may appear a perfectly ambiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure, but it does not appear so to us..."
--A. Lincoln, c. 1847, when he was a member of the House of Representatives.
The "Mexican War" was precisely the "gunning down systematically ... by Texas Rangers" of Mexicans. James A. Polk: "It was clear that in making war we would if practicable obtain California and ...other portions of the Mexican territory..."
Of course, back then, human rights were not exactly an issue.
The Serbs have the government they deserve. If they don't get rid of it, by any means nessesary, then they are just as culpable...
And what about the Americans? Our government was democratically elected -- just like theirs. (Oh yes it was -- look it up.) Should *we* get rid of it 'by any means necessary', since the United States had to break *FOUR* international treaties in order to engage in this undeclared "war"?
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Let me be the first to point out that we are *RIGHT NOW* seeing the rise of another Hitler in Vladimir Putin [new President of Russia, for the politically unaware].
- Same rhetoric of "bringing back the glory of the state",
- same supression of the independent media,
- same demonization of the "decadent" West,
- same cozy links with the oligarchs while calling for an end to "corruption",
- same unqualified support for the military,
- same bringing into the government his unknown and unqualified 'associates',
- same saber-rattling,
- many of the same economic problems, etc.
He's even sent troops to Ethiopia: maybe he'll be Mussolini as well. I just wonder who his "internal enemies" are going to be. I've got half my money on "the liberals" and the other half on "the Jews". [I'd advise members of both groups to leave before the purges and pogroms start up].And, also, who will be Putin's Neville Chamberlain: "I believe it is peace in our time."MARK MY WORDS -- you saw it here first.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
you are right on the front of weapons being easier to use, however, the idea that there was EVER a time 'in the good ole days' when 'we just had better morals, durnit' is preposterous. crack any history book that even attempts to explore the human condition in a given period (finding them is a feat in and of itself..)and you will rapidly come to the conclusion that NOW is the least dark time in 'known' human history.
One thing most people do not get about the Gulf War is that is was not in our interest to destroy the Iraq Army nor do I think it was ever a real goal of the Allies. IRAQ has stopped the spread of Iran for 10 years during the Iran Iraq war. It will not help to weaken Iraq so much as to give Iran an opportunity to dominate the region. It is sad but true we wanted to weaken Iraq's army and we wanted them out of oil rich Kuwait, But we still needed Iraq to be a buffer to Iran. This is one of the reasons we still want Iraq weak but not too weak. As for Husan I feel it would have been politically good to get rid of him but there is no way of knowing if the person who replaces him would not have been as bad. We had a very large number of ground troops on the ground and over the border. We had the ability to destroy the whole Iraq army every last tank and truck if we wanted to. It would have taken maybe an extra 4 or 5 day a week at the most but then we where not ready to do in IRAQ what we did in Germany in 1945 after competently destroying the German army. That was out goal in WW2 not to get Berlin or Hitler but to end Germanys ability to wage war. After wards we stayed for 50 years to defend it against a potential invader. If Iran Invades Iraq you will see the US help Iraq as we during the Iran Iraq war. The IRAQ army stayed intact because we wanted it that way because at the time it seemed in our best interest.
The dicotomy between then and now comes from the fact that in the "modern" western world weapons are not needed for our mere survival. We have little need to hunt for our food, and (while it does have its own problems) we have a justice system to protect us from violent criminals.
"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."
The NATO media lead us to believe (at the time) that the Rambouillet Treaty had been rejected by the Serbs, and that this showed that all reasonable diplomatic avenues had been explored. Thus the only avenue left was military force. But if you read the treaty you find that the treaty terms call for the annexation of Serbia (not just Kosovo) by NATO. (Look at Appendix B, from about Appendix B (8) onwards). this annexation would be of land, air, with full access to electromagnetic spectrum.... Oh, read it for yourself, it only takes 5 mins. We're talking about a treaty that asked Serbia to accept a NATO occupation force in *Serbia* - not just Kosovo (as it is now). You could call it a peacekeeping force, but if I were a Serb, I would see it as an occupation force. What nation would accept a treaty like that? Wasn't it at least forseeable (inevitable?) that Serbia would reject a treaty such as this? If so, what was the motivation of NATO in presenting the treaty as the final possible offer that diplomacy could offer? I was keeping a close eye on the media at the time, mostly in Britain and the US, but found no mention of these treaty terms. BTW - I have confirmed this document against other sources. Doesn't this raise some rather disturbing questions?
Just think about the Canadian comment below,
'A "virtual war" in Ignatieff's work, is a fiction, invented by the American armed forces.... I'm from Canada. Can you tell? '
Oh yes, one of those other countries who always look to America to lead any "international" peace initiative. Why? Because America is the only true power left in this world. Russia is bankrupt, China is still struggling to get into the 1950's, and the other "powers", like Canada, don't keep enough of a military to defend themselves, much less "protect peace". They rely on the US military for that service, and take a "moral" highground, claiming to be better than armed conflict. But when their interests are at stake, they're more than happy to cry to the big, bad, US of A.
Getting to the point, if the United States must keep the global peace, AND protect the interests of the western world, how can we possibly commit enough troops to keep every situation calm? How can we take that sort of risk? We need to turn to "virtual weapons". We can't possibly supply the entire world with armed young men to hold territory. Instead, we must convince opposing countries to back down. The best way to do this is with overwhelming force. If diplomacy would work, it would have worked before the aggressor nation moved troops. (For examples, see WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia....)
So, if we save our young men while still preserving world peace, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Do you truly think Saddam Hussein would have stopped with Kuwait? Yeah. It was all about oil. Sure. And Hitler would certainly stop after breaking the treaty of Versailles by rearming. No, after taking the Sudetenland. Or wait, after Poland maybe....
The lesson we learned from Hitler is: eternal vigilance for eternal peace. There is no other option. Either we make sure that "they" know that we can kill them better than they can kill us - or each other - or we wade through the blood of some good old-fashioned large-scale war. Personally, I like the virtual kind much better. It saves me from losing another uncle, like I did from Vietnam.
Do you think computers are making decisions? Do you think humans are sitting there, passively, disengaged from the reality of war?
I spent most of ALLIED FORCE at Aviano AFB, which was the tip of the spear for the NATO Air Forces. I traveled throughout Italy, wiring people to information, and wiring information to the clock.
Members of my team traveled into the mud of Albania, served on US Navy ships at sea, and flew combat missions on Command and Control aircraft. (We used Linux, Open Source Tools, and duct tape extensively and successfully, but that is another story).
It was my job to ensure that US Pilots flew their missions with the best intelligence available. We looked for every possible edge to make sure that the pilots and their crews would come home when the campaign was over.
The pilots that fly these missions do not have a free ride. They get shot at with missiles and anti-aircraft batteries, and many do see what they are hitting with the video feeds wired in the tip of their missiles.
They are prepared with reports, photographs, video, and 3D simulations for the mission at hand.
If you recall, some of these men were shot down and rescued. Special Forces engaged in fierce fire fights in order to bring the pilots home. These rescue teams flew at night, over the tree tops, and into enemy fire. This was not virtual, it was a life and death mission under extreme conditions.
Remember the men lost training to fly the Apaches in the mountainous terrain? It is amazing that the search and rescue teamscame home, let alone the downed pilots.
With technology, you can watch genocide in action.
Car loads of Serbian soldiers would drive into a village, and begin burning down the homes of innocent civilians. They would execute entire families as they fled their burning homes.
On one occasion, the Serbs were reinforced by helicopters and more troops. Predator, a surveillance drone, flew overhead, sending a live video feed back to commanders on the ground who then directed pilots forward to thwart the attack.
I watched dozens die on one such broadcast from Predator while anxiously awaiting a fighter with fuel to arrive on target.
Minutes became hours.
Seconds after the last Serb mercenary climbed aboard, and the rotor began to spin, the helicopter was destroyed by a missile.
Justice was served. Should we judge this particular laser guided munition to be immoral? I think not.
NATO didn t save any lives in this town, but the next village down the road sure did appreciate the effort.
The Serbian attack on Kosovar civilians was well planned. It was systematic. Go back and read the articles from CNN, jot down the name of the towns, and plot them on a map.
The first day of the war, all of the major towns on major arteries leading out of Kosovo were attacked. The next day, all of the secondary roads, and the smaller towns were torched. The third day, we watched refugees leaving on trains, the last major transportation artery in Kosovo. These towns, once annotated on a map, gave the appearance of the hours on the face of a clock. Systematic. Brutal. The Serbs wore ski masks to hide their identities from their neighbors.
Try researching hours of gun tape video that DOES NOT reach CNN. The sterile bomb damage assessment (BDA) videos of buildings and parked aircraft make the public Pentagon briefings. It appears that author Michael Ignatieff just researched theseprime time videos, not the actual BDA used by the warriors engaged in making a peace in the Balkans.
You get to see the men standing there in shirt sleeves, smoking, and then looking up right before impact. The picture is too fuzzy to make out their faces.
Pilots did not see death so clearly from 15000 feet in WWII, or in Vietnam.
I was there at the debriefing of the pilot involved in the convoy bombing.
The Serbs were using civilians as human shields, in addition to using civilian vehicles to move from town to town to commit atrocities and loot. I saw the anguish sweep over this pilot, and his General, as they spent hours listening to tapes and watching video, recreating the strike.
I flew home after the first 3 weeks of this virtual war and got just as drunk flying back 5 days later as I did coming home.
For the war fighter and their commanders, it is truly vivid, and real time, even through the lens of a video camera during an air campaign. Thank God we did not see casualties from a ground campaign. Enough said.
Going to war with advanced weapons and vehicle platforms is not immoral. This is a gross simplification of a complex reality.
A simplification designed to sell a book first, and to offer a weak philosophical discussion second. The aforementioned Star Trek episode sounds more intriguing.
I remember hearing how Idi Amin was another Hitler.
And Khomeini
And Qaddafi
And Noriega
And Saddam Hussein
And Milosevic
And Bin Laden
And [$AllRussianLeadersSinceStalin]
And [$AllChineseLeadersSinceMao]
These days, I spend far too much time considering the passage in 1984, where the eternal enemy of Oceania changes in the middle of a politician's speech. Every few years, a new Hitler is put forth for us, to hate enough that we don't mind when our government decides to slap them down. Once that foe has been vanquished, another one is brought from the wings and paraded for our amusement, for our hatred, again.
Frankly, I'm getting tired of it.
I don't doubt that some of the honor roll above could have (or may yet) become all-new mini-Hitlers. I supported the Gulf War because I believe that Hussein is a man without honor, who will trade anything for power. I'm sure that Milosevic deserves a Paveway down the chimney as much as any other murderer in this world. And I don't doubt that Putin is as nasty an ex-Communist as is available in his country.
But give Godwin's Law a rest. There's always going to be Another Hitler. Some will fade away before they can amass enough support to matter. Some will, perhaps, be too well known and closely watched to get away with their Final Solutions. And sometimes, one will slip through no matter what is done.
But please don't bother telling me that *this guy* is *really* Hitler Arisen, this time. I've heard it all before.
Ironheart
Who at least knows that the USSR had troops in Ethiopia 15 years ago and more...
Yes you where afraid to repeat WWII. That is why you helped set the fucker up, him and Saddam are probably on the NSA payroll!! It's very easy to hit civilian targets and Chinese Embassies and call it a glorious victory.......
Ever read what the Kennedy clan thought of Hitler?? or some leading Generals and Senators in America at the time. How come the large Nazi sympathiser support base in the States. Huge support for him. George Bush's (father) and other business leaders even went into business with the man. Insurance companies insured Jew's knowing they where going to die!! Sick fuckers.
The rest of the Senate\Congress was so busy worrying about the effect of Roosevelt's New Deal and other "commie" "nigger" inspired plots that they where wallowing away in isolationism. Thank God for Roosevelt the only man who had the brains and the guts to stand up to a fascistic fuck like that!
This time round the troops where so busy waiting for CNN that they missed the Russians taking control of the airport. Perhaps next time we could have action replay's of kills and interview's "How did you feel killing that little old lady at the well?" "Well I felt midy proudy doody doody"
One day you will run into someone like the VC again and they will kick your ass all over the place.
Bravery , Honour, Sacrifice and Duty that is what an armed forces member should be skilled and educated in not in the latest blow-up pillow so his little head doesn't get hurt or how to sit back 100k's from the front and make interesting documentary television whilst planes hit who know's what. Ever noticed that they usually show the same hits on the TV or describe a scene which anybody familiar with military technology could not happen.
"No, personally I'm sick of it. The US needs to stop intervening in conflicts which have nothing to do with it" - well perhaps then you should have left Europe after WWII and not stayed around and created NATO and all of your other "collective security" organisations. You made your bed now you lie in it. You wanted to be the World's policeman now your stuck with it...
And on another point you aren't the only people with technology - Russia - ever compared the tech spec's of the MIG 29SMT to any American 4th generation plane (those guy's would fuck you over in the air big time).......... China - the most heavily defended and precise AA system in the world. Try hitting them with your "STEALTH" fighters......
Why don't you mix it up with them??
I know the answer..............................
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Let me be the first to point out that we are *RIGHT NOW* seeing the rise of another Hitler in Bill Clinton [President of USA, for the politically unaware in the USA].
Same rhetoric of "The tree of liberty and all that shit"
Same supression of the independent media - PBS
Same demonization of the "decadent" Milosevic and Hussein
Same cozy links with the oligarchs in the NSA and old boy Law Firms
Same unqualified support for the military industrial complex
Same bringing into the government his unknown and unqualified 'associates'
Same saber-rattling
All the same economic problems
He's even sent troops to Serbia: maybe he'll be Mussolini as well. I just wonder who his "internal enemies" are going to be.
I've got half my money on "anti-Americans" and the other half on "Republicans".
[I'd advise members of both groups to leave before Marine Force Recon vapes your asses].
And, also, who will be Clinton's Neville Chamberlain: "I believe it is peace in our time."
MARK MY WORDS -- you saw it here first.
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Smart money's on the A-4 with the hardened POW at the stick.
But who cares, I vote Democrat anyway. Now there's a tough choice.... imagine Gore vs. Bradley, both piloting Ragnarok 'Mechs. I think I'd have to go with Bradley on that one.
J
Precisely Formulated Goals, Desired Outcome Achieved
;-) There are several reasons for this, including the American culture that is pretty closed; lack of history knowledge and general ignorance among the people with lower education/income level. Here comes patriotism. Try turning on the TV and watching some movies or shows. Significant portion of them has evil terrorists/drug dealers of Serbian, Oriental, Latino, Russian or Arabic origin whose evil plots are dismantled by brave and moral-dispersing G.I.-s ;-)
Clinton is a scum. Pure and simple. He should be either tried as a war criminal or shot like a dog.
There were many posts here about the economics of war. It was actually Lenin who told many years ago that the politics is a concentrated expression of the economics.
But not many people gave a detailed explanation of what economics were used this time.
1) Rob Peter to pay Paul.
Do you remember the hurricane in the Central America, when Clinton sent the emergency food relief by buying 10,000 pigs from farmers in Iowa and giving it to the hungry ? It was a worthy cause, and it was not expensive for the taxpayers. On the other hand, whom will these farmers vote now? I'd guess, Gore.
The same thing happened here, but on the much higher and much more cynical scale. Not everyone welcomed the end of Cold War. Besides the military establishment whose value was greatly diminished, the defence contractors felt the heat. As you know, it's not easy thing to reprofile the companies from military production towards the peaceful one. Soviet Union ruined a lot of industry trying to do the conversion in the beginning of 90-s. And they did not even have a capitalism at that time, i.e., there was a tremendous need in the goods they could have produced in these ex-military factories; here in the US all the niches of the market are already taken, so that whatever marketing direction defence contractors might take, they will be fighting established players in that area of the market.
On the other hand, the ammo and equipment used in battle is usually replenished and replaced by the government. And this equipment produced for the internal use is the most technically advanced, with the highest price tags and profit margins unlike the obsolete equipment sold to the third world countries who use it against their neighbours. And this kind of equipment is not likely to be outsourced to the other countries; so, spending these money on destroying Yugoslavia means reinvesting the significant portion of it into the American economy. Plus, Clinton reaps the great political benefits: should I remind you that in this country big business usually favor Republicans? So, rob the taxpayers and give money to the defence establishment.
2) I would not claim that all Americans are ignorant idiots when it comes to the other world (as some of my friends who live in Europe tend to think), but the sad truth is that a lot of them are (including G.W. Bush
For these on the lower level of the intellect CNN does not differ from other networks; they just see the same ideological bubblegum and propaganda stereotypes produced by live actors instead of the Hollywood! They take CNN footage and comments without a grain of salt and are just proud of their country who "restores justice in the entire world".
So, another electorate win!
3) You should not forget that this war was used to show Clinton's name in other context than the Monicagate scandal. I don't approve the Starr's hipocritic witchhunt, but it does not approve Clinton's desire to whiten by leading a "righteous war".
I thought that the above said was it before meeting with a specialist in the modern warfare. He was able to open my eyes on several factors I could not see before.
4) Sure, you know that the ammo has the "good before" date stamp. Do you know, how much it will cost to properly dismantle all of it, especially in our environmentally conscious era? It is not just much more expensive than transporting them to any destination on the Earth; you can add the cost of lost planes and still have a huge profit by choosing this way of destruction for the ammo.
5) Weapons manufacturers would kill to test their latest equipment in the real world. And they will kill innocent civilians. Just try thinking how much the tests would cost in the peaceful times. You need to find a place first and make sure there will not be possible casualties among the bystanders. And not everyone wants the tests made in their vicinity; just remember the latest protests of Puerto Ricans. It might be cynical, but the war is the only kind of maneuvers where you don't care about accidental victims among the civilians.
6) Psychological factor.
The army in the US is professional. It means that only ones who want to join the army do it. The sad truth is that there are a lot of aggression in people. And the American approach is to suppress and hide it. Where people in primitive societies give the aggression an exit by "resolving" problems with fistfights or at least shouting matches, modern American culture uses lawyers for this (unless you're in some kind of ghetto where the only law is the law of force and money).
A war can be and is a way to disperse some adrenalin into the world for a lot of aggressive people who have consciously chosen the Army and do it with only a few coffins shipped home.
I don't know what idiot has designed the military doctrine of fighting dictators by making the population suffer, BUT IT JUST DOES NOT WORK! No external "precise strikes" will give the people power; it will just give them unfounded hope (as it happened in Iraq) or desire to close ranks behind the tiran against the external enemy (as in Yugoslavia).
In the end, we have a country that was ravaged; hunger and lack of industry in the only country of the former Soviet block that prospered without the West's help.
God Bless America!
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
> Can any country like the U.S. muster the determination and will -- evident in all
> of its previous wars up until Vietnam -- to do whatever it takes to win even as our
> leaders concede the conflict --thus the principle -- isn't worth any any
> substantial material or human cost to us?
That same determination and will was VERY evident in the Gulf War. This wasn't a small military operation. It was a massive war campaign. Yes, it was fought quickly and the outcome was very one-sided. But it was an amazing achievement, accomplished because of just the determination and will you mention. The military did whatever it took to win.
I laugh now at people who talk about how easy the Gulf War was for us to win, about how weak and pathetic Iraq's military was, when in the months leading up to Desert Storm, every one of those "journalists" were talking about how the US reliance on technology would cause problems, how the US equipment would fail in the desert conditions, how the US military hadn't been faced with such a well equipped opponent, how the US airpower would be unable to deal with Iraq's intense air defenses. But since the US Military proved it was up to the challenge, those same journalists now talk about how weak iraq was, determined not to credit the US military with any true success.
After Vietnam, the US military regime got real scared of the media. They now see the media as a tool for them to use. Now, if the media started reporting on how many casualties the US has received in any sort of action, they think it will make them look bad and start more anti-military protests and such.
Now, here is how it affects me:
I deploy in less than a week to go to Kosovo.
I have to carry with me all sorts of rules cards, books, manuals and such in my damn cargo pockets. So much crap that I will probably be walking around in circles most of the due to the weight drag. The US military is a zero-tolerance (sp?) zero-risk military organization now. And it makes me pretty mad.
As it stands now, if someone (or someones) throw anything at us, we are to do basically nothing.
When I went into Bosnia for IFOR, we scared the locals to death! They NEVER threw anything at us. THey figured it all out pretty quickly:
War is not profitable for us.
Now they are rebuilding their factories, producing goods (good wicker furniture!), and making money. THey are happier. Problem with Kosovo is either they haven't figured that one out, or they are too lazy and want the rest of the world to pay their way.
Either way, first rock to hit me, that man, woman, chaild, dog, whatever needs to feel pain and send a message to their little buddies. Screw with the US military and feel the wrath of the entire NATO. RIght now, that isn't happening, but a new rotation of soldiers just might change that.
I-Ball
History in all countries is modified, comunists do not have a monopoly in this regard. There are always inconvinient details to the truth. as an example several of the units in the first wave of US troops appear to have been British troops in American uniforms.
I'm sure that the history before and after the revolution shows significant differences based on who won. for example one of the revolutionary war heroes was hung by his own government for piracy after the war. this fact was not known to the guides at the revolutionary war museum when it was visited by a relative of mine. History is not a solid monolith manipulated by the evil dictators of the world, rather it is a fluid entity, that shapes itself about our memories
It is true, that 95% of the serbs had to flee from their own country (as long as Cosovo belonges to Serbia), because the NATO forced them. THAT IS ETHNIC CLENSING.
Call "CyberTerr" for a label. I target critical infrastructure: the power net, telcos, ground and air traffic control systems. I aim airliners for mountains, gridlock cities while shutting down both power AND Ma Bell. And hey, while at it, I take over a few nuclear power plants, and have them melt down. All remotely.
Trust me, I'm quite convinced a purely Cyber war could have LOTS of physical casualties. And so does the Pentagon: they reportedly have a significant part of their Information Warfare, excuse me, Information OPERATIONS, capability in Infrastructure Defense.
And even if I'm wrong, and the Pentagon is wrong, DO YOU WANT TO TAKE THAT CHANCE ???
Independent western media is an oxymoron
you moron
by Anonymous Coward on 06:13 AM May 31st, 2000 EST
The Balkans are still a mess first because of the Turk invasion 600 years ago. Second because of the way the new states were created there by the so called Great Powers in the last century. Today it is a mess only in ex-Yugoslavia which was created after WWI, combining diferent nations in one unstable state. Also ther are a mess because of the label used for a very simple row of wars which led to WWI.
Unfortunately, this was posted annonmyously, but the Ac in question seems to be the only one here with an actual sense of the history of the region.
The US/UN/NATO should stay out of the Balkans!!! The "Great Powers" of the twentieth century, and the empires of the centuries before are the ones who drew the borders and created the petty kingdoms, republics, and finally the federation of Yugoslavia which later blew up because of power hungry local elites who wanted to gain purchase in the emerging global economic order. The West(TM) just keeps screwing things up and should stay out of it. We're still playing the same power games.
As far as the whole virtual warfare things goes, I all in favor of desanitizing the process. Let's let the congressmen and the president who vote for military action eith get in on the bloodletting themselves, or send their children onto the front lines.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
Wow, sounds to me like Radovan Karadzic and Radko Mladic have a great defence. I wonder why they won't go to face those charges in the Hague? or Slobo? If his country is as domocratic as you say, why has B92 and other opposition voices been silenced?
Just because they haven't found them yet, doesn't mean they are not there. As Carla De Ponte said in the article you quote "Our job is to gather evidence not take a census of the dead".
Nearly 6 years after the end of the war in Bosnia, the war crimes tribunal is still finding mass graves, some with as many as 2500 people in them (search CNN for the story last week). So since those graves weren't found in the first year after the war they didn't happen?
Give me a break. I have not reconsidered my views.
The government sanctioned murder of ANYONE base on their ethnicity, be it 100, 10 000 or 10 million people is wrong.
Does the UN/ NATO need a lot more resources to police the province? Hell yes. Does that mean they are on the side of the KLA (who I agree are terrorist and thugs)? No.
Read my sig. Get a clue
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
IMHO this statement misses the point. If a virtual war is chosen over one in which there is human causalty it cannot be inferred that our leaders do not believe that the conflict is worth being involved in. More importantly, it definitely does not mean that the principle over which it is being fought is not worth fighting for, or is not "worth any any substantial material or human cost to us".
Rather, one would choose a virtual war because of the recognition of the value of human life. Why would we sacrifice a human life in a bloody conflict when we could achieve the same end without any loss of life, through a virtual war?
A virtual war is about cutting our losses; achieving the goal, upholding the principle, or as the author crudely puts it, doing whatever it takes to win, by the means which results in the least loss to us.
Those most directly impacted by the sad tragedy that is the Castro revolution would be quick to point that out to you, if you dared to express such a foolish opinion to their faces.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I remember an old episode of Star Trek where they visited a planet that was at war with another planet. Weapons were virtually fired at their opponents. The computers would figure out where that weapon would have hit, decided how many and who would have been killed, and passes down an order for all those who would have been killed to enter a chamber that they didn't come out of. This was designed to allow the war to continue without actually damaging any buildings. If you ask me, this is as close to a virtual war as you can get.
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Also, I was reading Jeremy Black's War and the World: Military Power and the Fate of Continets recently; I seem to recall that he suggests that the American claim that accurate rifle fire from rebel sharpshooters played a major part in defeating the overly regimented, slow, musket firing redcoats is exaggerated. But I don't have it handy to check ...
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
In short, the willingness to fight, kill, and die, for one's own, or one's neighbors, is best kept as personal -- and perhaps as local -- as possible.
Otherwise, as the responsibility for defending a people's freedoms flows towards a central organization, inevitably so will the authority for deciding when, and under what circumstances, to project force under that banner.
Of course, by itself, the Second Amendment isn't anything approaching a cure-all in terms of stopping all sorts of abuse.
But, without the clear message that individuals must take responsibility for preserving their own security, safety, and freedoms, it seems, historically as well as (to me, anyway, given human nature) logically inevitable that the abuses of freedoms, the balkanization of peoples, the destructions of entire peoples based largely on a perceived threat they pose to a wealthy minority, etc., will increase.
(Other important individual responsibilities that help society repel such things include defending freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, and defending the basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- note that "life" here ideally starts at the moment of conception, since a society that dismisses the unborn as unworthy of protection is likely to erode its notion of innocence of children over time.)
Now that I view sociopolitical issues from this standpoint, I realize that I can't claim I'm nonviolent just because I don't, and intend never to, own any firearms, and further don't feel inclined to commit violence to preserve, e.g., my own personal property. (I'm less sure about what I'd do as my own family members' lives, and my life, gets involved; that's okay, I think, and just as well.)
After all, if my personal property was stolen, I'd report it to the police, and that invokes a system of violence by proxy, something I could (for the most part, unless I choose to not be a good citizen and follow pertinent laws, in which case I could say "entirely") choose to not do.
Similarly, if I vote in favor of legislation that authorizes a local, state, or federal government to restrict other people, I'm authorizing violence, again, by proxy.
I therefore now take my responsibilities in these areas much more seriously. I'm not "pro-gun", but since I'm unwilling (as a Christian) to require others to commit violence to forward the agenda of gun control (due to being unwilling to suffer violence in the attempt to implement it myself, e.g. as if I was a BATF agent or something), I find myself generally opposed to gun-control legislation.
Generally, having tried to put into practice what I see the Golden Rule as requiring of me, I find myself much less supportive of various sorts of legislation which I might have long-ago supported, and even opposing things about which I might have been neutral -- because violence committed on my behalf, with my approval (explicit or tacit), is morally pretty much the same as if I committed that violence.
So when it comes to things like the initial and final invasions of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, my initial opinions became radically changed within pretty short order. Not so much because I went from being "pro-law-enforcement" to "anti-law-enforcement", but because I went from thinking it was great those BATF agents put their lives on the line to "take out" some extreme fringe militant group to seriously doubting whether their lives (the BATF agents), and certainly the lives of so many innocent Branch Davidians, were worth putting on the line so a bunch of Americans (possibly including myself) could feel more "comfortable" knowing that their guns had been taken away.
And these days when someone says (including here on /.) something like "I favor gun control because knowing people like whoever have guns doesn't make me feel safe", I have to laugh...
(This change in my own thinking has been somewhat stunning. Applying my own logic to the War on Drugs leaves me, a lifetime opponent of the use of even recreational drugs due to my religious convictions, seriously questioning much of what I used to take for granted as being legit when it comes to government activism on behalf of the anti-drug agenda of mine. Certainly I reserve my own rights to "fight" on behalf of that agenda myself -- I won't give up freedom to speak out on it, for example -- and I do think a War on Drugs has the marginal advantage over the coming War on Guns, morally speaking, that drugs aren't nearly as important as guns when it comes to what it takes to preserve, versus merely enjoy, liberty -- but the assumption I long held that legal prohibitions were "obviously necessary" for drugs have nearly completed vanished. I no longer have any moral justification to ask DEA agents to put their lives on the line to make sure my neighbors aren't smoking crack, shooting heroine, especially using marijuana or growing hemp. Whatever support I have left for such prohibitions is on much shakier, short-term ground.)
I encourage everyone to consider reasoning about their favorite "issues" from this standpoint: does the position you advocate require someone else to be imposed upon if they disagree? Does it require other parties to threaten, perhaps use, force (i.e. violence) to impose your will on your behalf? If so, are you personally willing to implement that violence and take the risks that stem therefrom -- thereby advocating your position as a means to ensure that the violence used to impose your will is collectively agreed upon and carried out in a less emotional state by professionals? Or are you advocating that position simply because you assume you won't have to face the results yourself, including the results when the use of force is imperfect, as will inevitably happen from time to time? Would you die for your position, as America's Founding Fathers were willing to do (and many did) for the freedoms they carved out via their limited-government approach to creating a nation?
Considering the incredible ability the USA has had (for decades now) to impose its will on others, I often think it's amazing we don't commit worse abuses than we have to date (e.g. bombing aspirin factories with innocent people inside, to take one obvious example).
But with Americans increasingly favoring gun control, and not even wanting investigations into things like the Elian raid, in the presence of important legal questions...
In this context, I'm pretty much convinced that 99% of all gun-control advocates are not so much "non-violent" as combinations of hypocrisy and cowardice, because I don't see much "grass-roots" efforts involving going door to door (in cities, suburbs, or rural areas) asking neighbors to turn over their weapons. Nor do I see signs saying "Gun-Free Zone" in front of peoples' houses, the way one now takes "Smoke-Free" or "Drug-Free" signage for granted.
Perhaps gun-control proponents will prove me wrong, and take up their own charge to remove guns from the American countryside without waiting for government to do it for them. (More properly, by first viewing themselves as intrinsically part of that government.)
(My guess is, those who do that, will consist largely of people who end up concluding they were wrong-headed to advocate gun-control anyway. E.g. if 80% of US women aged 18 thru 21 were "drafted" into an unarmed militia whose sole purpose was to remove all handguns from the American countryside, I bet the percentage of Americans who "support gun control" would go way down, even if it was the most effective way to get the supposedly desired results, and even assuming this approach would have the lowest casualty, as well as highest compliance, rates; the advocates of gun control are, in my estimation, unlikely to send themselves or their daughters into the fray, preferring to "feel safe" by remote control.)
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.